Faith-Based Mental Health

John Tomasi is right (see “Should Political Liberals be Compassionate Conservatives?: Philosophical Foundations of the Faith-Based Initiative” Social Philosophy & Policy 21/1, January 2004″) and Rawlsian political liberalism requires that if the state is going to provide certain services, then the state should also provide funds to non-secular providers of those services, otherwise, they get crowded out, and the comprehensive worldview common in the adminstrative state is, in effect, illiberally imposed.

So if the state pays for mental health services, they should also pay for alternative treatments, such as Scientology training (Scientology is rabidly anti-psychiatry), and Christian “treatments” for homosexuality. The state must not discriminate against those who do not believe in the secular mental health profession's definition of our spiritual and behavioral woes, or those who don't believe in Ritalin, Prozac and grief counseling as the cure for their spiritual ills.